Cooper, James Fenimore. (1789 - 1851).

L i f e

- born in Cooperstown = founded and named by his father

> the source for his aristocratic view of the frontier and its inhabitants

> the model for the frontier setting of his The Pioneers (1823)

- his strong-willed father, a country gentleman, Federalist, and political and social conservative

- the tension with his father anticipated the tension in his writing

= the tension in the nation’s culture: desire for the personal and cultural originality x the luring of the established forms and inherited contexts

W o r k

- aimed to produce a purely American work on the theme of love of country

N o v e l  o f  M a n n e r s :

Precaution (1820):

- an early novel of manners in the style of Jane Austen

F r o n t i e r  N o v e l s :

The Spy (1821):

= set in the Revolutionary War

- believed American history could be a suitable setting for fiction

‘The Leatherstocking Tales’ (1823 - 1841):

- a series of the novels connected by the character Natty Bumppo = Hawkeye

- the name: from Hawkeye’s nickname based on his habit of wearing long deerskin leggings

- not published according to the regular course of their incidents

- a sense of loss: an impossible vision of the land gradually diminishes x but: remains a powerful imagined alternative to material progress

- articulated the American myth of the movement from old age to youth, and of the past’s continued presence

- defined the frontier as the primary fact of American history, and landscape as the fundamental reality of American life

- established the prototypical American hero: Hawkeye = the cultural mediator btw the wilderness x the civilisation

= a metaphor for Cooper’s own literary achievement: a balanced existence receding ceaselessly into the past

> influenced Herman Melville’s Ishmael, Mark Twain’s Huck Finn, William Faulkner’s Ike McCaslin, and Ernest Hemingway’s protagonists

Chronology of the novels with respect to the character of Hawkeye:

The Deerslayer (1841)

The Last of the Mohicans (1826)

The Pathfinder (1840)

The Pioneers (1823)

The Prairie (1827)

S e a  N o v e l s :

- blends technical detail, memorable characters, and patriotic appeal

- intermixes the American history and the life at sea

> influenced Herman Melville and Joseph Conrad

C r i t i c i s m :

(a) defends the American culture and democracy

(b) criticises the American social and political life

- aristocratic ideals: the American life should be led by an elite minority, democracy should be in the possibility of social mobility

C o n t r i b u t i o n :

- the first to define native themes, settings, and characters

- launched distinct genres in American fiction: the American novel of manners, the sea novel, the European-American novel, and the novel of the mythic frontier

- opened new territories for American fiction: the nation’s past, frontier, and life at sea